MarketWatch’s top 10, Jan 7 - 11

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — U.S. stocks advanced on the week, buoyed by data, decent earnings, and enduring positive sentiment from the settlement of the fiscal cliff debate.

Of course everyone knows there’s another fight brewing, with probably just as much potential to disrupt the U.S. economy and global financial markets. But for now investors seem content to focus on the positives and hope that earnings season, which gets rolling in earnest next week, will get the year off to a good start.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA, -1.11%
rose 17.21 points or 0.1% on Friday to close at 13,488.43, a gain of 0.4% for the week. The Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP, -0.94%
closed at 3,125.63 on Friday, a gain of 3.88 points or 0.1% on the day and 0.8% for the week. The broader, benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 Index
SPX, -0.88%
dropped a fraction of a point on Friday, registering a negligible percentage decline, and managed a 0.4% gain for the week.

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Shaken shares

Herbalife Ltd.
HLF, +0.09%
shares sank after hedge fund manager and short-seller Bill Ackman said the company’s nearly three-hour presentation to Wall Street — a detailed rebuttal of accusations that the firm was a pyramid scheme — did nothing to change his view of the company. Herbalife defense fails to convince investors.

Turn, turn, turn

With U.S. stock funds seeing some of their best inflows in years, chatter has begun to surface that the long-anticipated “great rotation” out of bonds may finally have begun after years during which frightened investors have been piling into bond funds. Big fund flows spark great rotation debate.

Safe bet

Low interest rates in developed economies have made emerging market debt, once viewed as a risky fringe idea, into an investment that looks like one of the safest bets in fixed income. Rich bond yields you’re likely missing.

Out of hiding

Some confidence is returning to the gold market, which should stabilize the price while investors wait for a resolution of the latest policy fight in Washington DC. The settlement of debt ceiling and spending cut arguments in the next two months will have a major impact on gold’s direction for the rest of the year. Gold bulls come out of hiding.

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information on NASDAQ traded symbols and their current financial status. Intraday
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from Dow Jones & Company, Inc. SEHK intraday data is provided by SIX Financial Information and is
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